1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus connected to an external network, and an information processing system in which information processing apparatuses connected to an internal network perform an interaction or a linked operation. The present invention also relates to a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium that stores a program which, when executed by a computer, causes the computer to perform a process of the information processing apparatus or the information processing system. The present invention further relates to an information processing method to be implemented in the information processing apparatus or the information processing system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, in an environment (user environment) in which an image processing apparatus is introduced, a manufacturer of the image processing apparatus provides a service (for example, a MPS (Managed Print Service)) to support operation and management of equipments that are introduced, via an external network (for example, a WAN (Wide Area Network)) such as the Internet.
According to the above service, external information (for example, public information such as “equipment name” and “model name”) managed in a manufacturer environment in the external network and internal information (for example, secure information such as “utilization log”) are merged, to provide information that is related to the equipment operation and management and is useful to the user. In this case, the internal information that is managed by an internal server set up within the user environment is once collected via the external network by the an external server set up within the manufacturer environment. The internal information is merged with the external information and provided to the user when there is a request to provide the information.
However, unlike the external information that is public information, the internal information is secure information. For this reason, an authentication process may be required when an access is made from the external server to the internal server or, an enciphered communication (for example, SSL (Secure Sockets Layer)) may be required when a communication is made between the external server and the internal server, in order to acquire the internal information.
For example, a Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2001-60235 proposes a method of performing a secure financial transaction that uses a VPN (Virtual Private Network), an enciphered communication, an authentication process, and the like in order to improve the security of transaction exchanged via the network.
However, according to the conventional method, it is a precondition that the external server collects and manages the internal information, regardless of the security technology used. As a result, the internal information that is secure information is exchanged via the external network, and thus, there is a risk of information leak via the external network.
For the above security reasons, some users have decided not to use the above service that supports operation and management of equipments that are introduced.